Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
