Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
