The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
