Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
