Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
