Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
