Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
