The social media network X has caused major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
