Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
