Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
