Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
