Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
