Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
