Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
