The online network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
