Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
