Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
