Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, 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 AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
