Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
