Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
