Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
