Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
