Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
