The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
