Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
