Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
