Elon Musk's online network X has caused major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
