Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
