The online network X has provoked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit image stripping software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
