Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
