The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
