Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
