The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
