Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
