The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
