Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
