Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
