Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
