Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
