Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
