Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
