Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
