Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
