Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
