Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
