Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
