Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
