Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
