Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
