Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
