Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
