Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
