Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
