Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
