Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
