Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
