Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
