Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
