Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference 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 uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
