Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
