Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
