Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
