The online network X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward 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 has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
