Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
