Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
