Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content 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 no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
