Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
