Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
