Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
