Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
