Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
