Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
