Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
