Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.