The social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
