Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
