The online platform X has provoked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit image stripping technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
