The online network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
