Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
