Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
