Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
