Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
