Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok 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 Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
