Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
