🔗 Share this article

Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.

Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.

History of Criticism and Rules

The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.