Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
