Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
