Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
