Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
