Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
