Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
