Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
