Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
