Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
