Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
