Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
