Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
