Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
