Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
