Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
