Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
