Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
