Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
