Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
