Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
