Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
