Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
