Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
