Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for 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 upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
