Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
