Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
