Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
