The social media network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
