The social media platform X has caused major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
