Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired 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 "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
