Recent events regarding the social media site X: have demonstrated the need to take far greater and meaningful public stances regarding generative AI and its use particularly for images. The recent news of how X’s AI ‘assistant’ (a questionable name for such a technology) has been utilised in the development of sexual abuse material of children and women. This demonstrates a clear flaw in the technology that was always predetermined to occur in the patriarchal society that we inhabit.

There is plenty of evidence to support the wide spread use of the aforementioned Grox for this purpose. Of which we shall be willing (if required) to present to the University and Student Union. Given these circumstances, we believe for not only the Welfare of students at the University, but also because the need for the University to take a stance against X and the wider culture of AI-generated images in general, beyond these circumstances, for societial cohesion and development. Steps should be taken to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students at the university and furthermore, a clear message that this sort of technology and its inevitable consequences are not acceptable and thus access to X shall henceforth be banned on university Wi-Fi and most crucially, the university shall commit to the following: the removal of all official university profiles from X and, the enforcement of staff to remove their own profiles from the website.

Beyond these reasonable requests, we feel that the use of generative AI of images by university social media and the promotions within the institution should be prohibited. Not only because of recent events, but crucially because of the university's commitment to sustainability and the fact that the use of this technology supports such exploitative industries that gain from the continued support of such respected institutions as the University of Worcester. The creation of AI-generated images only benefits those at the top of the profit motive system and is an a front to creativity; something the university should be supportive of and crucially when using images throughout all of its outputs: the university should be promoting the work of its art students before using technology that diminishes their worth to society.

These issues are interconnected through the shared commonality for the promotion of human values, only being weakened due to the fact that they’ve infringed upon individual rights to their own image. Universities should be communities driven towards the benefit of all, and crucially, intrinsically, they should be promoting critical thinking from the human spirit, rather than soulless creations turned out for the benefit of the one per cent.