Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
