Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
