Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
