Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
