Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
