Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
