Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
