The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
