The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.