Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
