Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
