Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
