The online platform X has caused major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of people 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 covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
