Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.