Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
