Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
