Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
