The social media network X has provoked significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
