Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
