Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
