Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
