Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
