The online network X has provoked major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
