Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
