Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
