Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
