Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
