Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
