Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
