Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
