Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
