The social media network X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
