Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
