Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread 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 terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
