The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
