Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
