Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" 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 AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
