Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
