Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
