The online network X has provoked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
