Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
