Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
