Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
