Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
