Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
