Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
