Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
