Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
