The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban image stripping tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
