Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
