Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
