Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
