Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
