Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
