Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
