Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment 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 prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
