Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
