The social media platform X has caused major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
