Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
