Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
