Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
