The social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, 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 illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
