Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
