Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
