Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.