Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
