The social media network X has caused widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
