Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
