Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
