The social media platform X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
