Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
