Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
