Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
