Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
