The online platform X has caused widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
