Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
