Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
