The online platform X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
