Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
