Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
