Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
