Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
