Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
