Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform 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 Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
