The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
