Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
