Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
