Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
