Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm 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 new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
