Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
