Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
