Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen 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 sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
