Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence 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 more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
