The social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
