Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
