Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
