Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
