The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
