The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
