Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
