Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
