The online network X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
