Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation 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 "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
