Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm 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 premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
