Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
