Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
