Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
