Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
