Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms 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 regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
