Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
