Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
