Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
