The online network X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
