Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
