Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
