Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
