Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
