Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
