Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
