Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
