Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
