The social media network X has provoked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
