The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
