Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
