Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
