The social media network X has caused major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
