Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
