Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
