Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
