Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
