Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
