Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
