Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
