The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
