Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
