Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
