Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
