Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
