Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
