Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
