Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
