🔗 Share this article

Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.

Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.

It is often used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.

History of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.

"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.