Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
