The social media network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
