The social media network X has sparked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
