Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
