Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free 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 offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
