The online network X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
