The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
