Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
