Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive 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 "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
