Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
