Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
