Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
