Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
