Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
