Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
