Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
