Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
