Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images 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 platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
