Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
