Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
