Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
