Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
