Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production 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 acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
