Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
