Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
