Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson 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 penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
