Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
