The online network X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
