Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
