Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
