Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
