Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
