Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
