Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
