Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
