Elon Musk's online network X has caused major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
