Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
