Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
