🔗 Share this article

Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.

Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.

Developer Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".

A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".

"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.

Background of Controversy and Policy

The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.

"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.