Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
