Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
