Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
