Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
