The social media network X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
