Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
