🔗 Share this article

Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.

Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."

Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.

It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.

"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.