Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
