Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
