Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
