Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial 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 Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
