Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
