The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
