Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
