The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
