Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
