Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
