Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
