The online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
