Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
