The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
