Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
