Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.