Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
