Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
