Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
