Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
