Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
