Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
