Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
