Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
