Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
