Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
