Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose 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 "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
