Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
