Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
