Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
