Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
