Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
