Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
