Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
