Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
