Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.