Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
