Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
