Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
