The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
