Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
