Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
