The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
