The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
