Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
