The social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
