Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
