Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
