Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
