Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.