The social media network X has caused major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming 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 forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing 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 bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
