Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
