Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
