The social media network X has caused widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
