Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
