Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
