Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
