Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
