Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
