Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
