Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
