Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
