Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
