Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
