Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
