The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
