The social media network X has caused significant anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
