Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
