Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
