Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
