Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
