Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
