Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
