Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
