Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
