The social media platform X has provoked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
