Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming 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 misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
