Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
