Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
