Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
