Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
