The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
