Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
