Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
