Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform 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 Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
