Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
