Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
