Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
