Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
