Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution 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 acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
