Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
