Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
