The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
