Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
