The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
