Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
