Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
