Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
