Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
