Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
