Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
