Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
