The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
