Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
