Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
