Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
