The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
