Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant 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 Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
