Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
