The social media platform X has provoked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced 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 inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw image stripping technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
