Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
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 often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
