The social media platform X has provoked major outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
