Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
