The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
