Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
