Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
