Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
