Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
