Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
