Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
