Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
