The social media network X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
