Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
