The social media network X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
