Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses 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 applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
