Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
