Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
