Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
