The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
