Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
