Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
