Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
