Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
