Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
