Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
