Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
