Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
