Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
