Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
