Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
