Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
