Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
