Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
