Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
