Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
