The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
