Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
