Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
