The social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
