Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
