Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
