Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
