Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
