Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
