Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
