The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
