Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
