Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
