Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
