Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
