The social media platform X has sparked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
