Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
