Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
