Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
