The online network X has provoked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
