The social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
