The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
