Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
