Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
