Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material 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 chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
