The social media network X has sparked significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images 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 "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
