Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
