Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
