Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
