The online network X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence 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 a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
