Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.