The online network X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
