Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
