Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
