Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
