🔗 Share this article

Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.

Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.

Developer Reaction and Legal 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 prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Regulator Position and Platform Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.

Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

Background of Criticism and Rules

The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.

"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.