Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional 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 Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons 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 included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
