The online platform X has caused significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
