Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
