The social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
