Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
