Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
