Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
