Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
