Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
