Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
