Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently 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 often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
