Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
