The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
