Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
