Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose 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 danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
