Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
