Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
