Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
