Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
