Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
