Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
