Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
