Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
