Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, 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 mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
