What to know about UK legal changes aiming to regulate AI-generated nude images

LONDON — Laws that will make it illegal to create online sexual images of someone without their consent are coming into force soon in the U.K., officials said Thursday, following a global backlash over the use of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok to make sexualized deepfakes of women and children.

Musk's company, xAI, announced late Wednesday that it has introduced measures to prevent Grok from allowing the editing of photos of real people to portray them in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the move, and said X must ''immediately'' ensure full compliance with U.K. law. He stressed that his government will remain vigilant on any transgressions by Grok and its users.

''Free speech is not the freedom to violate consent," Starmer said Thursday. ''I am glad that action has now been taken. But we're not going to let this go. We will continue because this is a values argument.''

The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI and freely accessed through his social media platform X, has faced global scrutiny after it emerged that it was used in recent weeks to generate thousands of images that ''undress'' people without their consent. The digitally-altered pictures included nude images as well as depictions of women and children in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses.

Critics have said laws regulating generative AI tools are long overdue, and that the U.K. legal changes should have been brought into force much sooner.

A look at the problem and how the U.K. aims to tackle it:

Britain's media regulator has launched an investigation into whether X has breached U.K. laws over the Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed. The watchdog, Ofcom, said such images — and similar productions made by other AI models — may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.

The problem stemmed from the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called ''spicy mode'' that can generate adult content.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall cited a report from the internet Watch Foundation saying the deepfake images included sexualization of 11-year-olds and women subjected to physical abuse.

''The content which has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal,'' she said.

What the UK is enforcing

First, the government says it is fast-tracking provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act making it a criminal offense to create or request deepfake images. The act was passed by Parliament last year, but had not yet been brought into force.

The legislation is set to come into effect on Feb. 6

''Let this be a clear message to every cowardly perpetrator hiding behind a screen: you will be stopped and when you are, make no mistake that you will face the full force of the law,'' Justice Secretary David Lammy said

Separately, the government said it is also criminalizing ''nudification'' apps as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

The new criminal offense will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images. Kendall said this would ''target the problem at its source.''

The investigation by Ofcom is ongoing. Kendall said X could face a fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation's outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site.

Starmer has faced calls for his government to stop using X. Downing Street said this week it was keeping its presence on the platform ''under review."