Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
