Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
